With the Order Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce plugin storeowners can easily create different delivery schedules.
Customers may add multiple products and choose specific Pickup Locations or Shipping Methods.
In such a case where the storeowners have multiple delivery schedules, they would want to decide which delivery schedule should be prioritized when numerous schedule settings match on the Checkout.
For this, they can use the Priority Setting added in v10.3.0.
By default, the priority fields will not be set, so the custom delivery schedules will be applied on the basis of ‘default priorities’ from highest to lowest in the following manner:
Pickup Location + Categories
↓
Pickup Location
↓
Shipping Method
↓
Product Category + Shipping Methods
↓
Product Category
↓
Products + Shipping Methods
↓
Products
In case of multiple categories or multiple products in the cart, the common settings between the two will be applied (with the highest cutoff between the two).
Now, if the Priority Settings are applied, then depending on the cases, they will be applied. The priority can be added as numbers from 1 to 10 where 1 is the highest.
Let’s have a look at the different cases:
Use Cases
1. Two or more Product Categories with different schedules with priorities set
When a customer adds products from two or more categories, then the customer delivery schedule with the highest priority will be applied.
*Please note: Priority settings begin from 1 onwards where 1 will be the highest priority.
Let’s assume that the following custom delivery schedules are enabled, with the highest priority to custom delivery schedule 2.
Delivery Schedules Enabled/ Disabled | Priority | Product Category | Delivery Days | Time slots | |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 1 |
Enabled | 3 | Personalized Gifting | Mondays
Tuesdays Wednesdays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | 2 | Clothing | Wednesdays
Thursdays Fridays |
11:00 to 11:15, 11:15 to 11:30, 11:30 to 11:45 |
Once set, they will look like this:
In this case, when the customer adds products from these two categories, they will get to view the delivery schedule which is set to the highest priority, that is, 2 as shown below:
The delivery date calendar will show the availability for Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays:
The available timeslots will be shown as below:
2. Two or more Product Categories with different schedules without any priorities set
When two or more products from different product categories with different delivery schedules are added to the cart, then the customer will get to see the common delivery settings between them.
Please note that in this case, no priority is set for both schedules:
Enabled/ Disabled | Priority | Product Category | Delivery Days | Time slots | |
Custom Delivery Schedule 1 |
Enabled | – | Personalized Gifting | Mondays
Tuesdays Wednesdays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | – | Clothing | Wednesdays
Thursdays Fridays |
11 to 11:15, 11:15 to 11:30, 11:30 to 11:45 |
Let’s say that the two delivery schedules simply have a common delivery day, which is, Wednesday, as shown here:
In this case, when the products from the two categories are added:
Then, the common delivery date will be displayed for the customer to choose:
*Please note that one delivery schedule had delivery time slots while the other does not have time slots assigned. This means that there are no common delivery time slots between them. Thus, the customer will get the following message if they try to select a time slot:
3. Product Categories with different schedules without any priorities set
Enabling Apply default delivery schedule will apply the default delivery schedule on the Checkout when a customer adds products from multiple product categories.
Please note that in such a case, priorities will not be set for any of the schedules.
Go to Settings > Common Schedule Settings > Apply default delivery schedule when no priority is set as shown below:
By default, this setting will be disabled.
After enabling it, click the Save Settings button:
For instance, if you have the following delivery schedules enabled:
Enabled/ Disabled | Priority | Product Category | Delivery Days | Time Slots | |
Default Delivery
Schedule |
Enabled | – | – | Saturdays
Sundays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 1 |
Enabled | – | Personalized Gifting | Mondays
Tuesdays Wednesdays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | – | Clothing | Wednesdays
Thursdays Fridays |
11:00 to 11:15, 11:15 to 11:30, 11:30 to 11:45 |
They will be reflected in the following manner:
Default Delivery Schedule
Custom Delivery Schedules 1 and 2
In the case where the Apply default delivery schedule is enabled, the customer will get to see the dates available in the default delivery schedule as shown below:
4.Two or more Shipping Classes with different schedules with priorities set
When a customer adds products from two or more shipping classes, then the customer delivery schedule with the highest priority will be applied. Let’s assume the following two custom delivery schedules are enabled, with the highest priority given to Custom Delivery Schedule:
Delivery Schedules Enabled/ Disabled | Priority | Shipping Class | Delivery Days | Time slots | |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 1 |
Enabled | 1 | Standard | Mondays
Wednesdays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | 2 | Classic | Wednesdays
Thursdays Fridays |
– |
Once configured, the settings will look like this in the plugin:
In this case, when a customer adds products from both Groceries and Bakery Items, the delivery schedule with the highest priority will be applied—Custom Delivery Schedule 1 (Priority 1).
The delivery date calendar will show the availability for Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays:
5. Priorities set between shipping methods, pickup locations, product categories & product based settings
In a case where you have different delivery schedules with Shipping Methods, Pickup Locations, Product Categories, or Product based settings, then the schedule with the highest priority will be applied on the front end.
EXAMPLE 1: PRODUCT CATEGORY + SHIPPING METHODS
Let’s say that you have 2 delivery schedules- Product Category and Shipping Method. In such a case, you have added the highest priority, i.e, 3 for Product Category:
Enabled/ Disabled | Priority | Schedule Type | Delivery Days | Time slots | |
Custom Delivery Schedule 1 |
Enabled | 3 | Product Category- Clothing | Wednesdays
Thursdays Fridays |
11 to 11:15, 11:15 to 11:30, 11:30 to 11:45 |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | 5 | Shipping Methods:
All Over India -> Flat rate |
Mondays
Tuesdays Wednesdays Thursdays Fridays |
– |
Once the settings have been added, they will look like this:
Once the customer adds the product Designer Scarf from the category Clothing and also selects the Flat rate shipping method, it will look like this:
In this case, the delivery settings of the Product Category schedule will be applied since it has the highest priority. That’s why, the customer will get to see dates available on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays:
After choosing the date, they will also get to select the timeslots added to that schedule:
EXAMPLE 2: PICKUP LOCATIONS + SHIPPING METHODS (LOCAL PICKUP)
Let’s say that you have 2 delivery schedules- Pickup Locations and Shipping Methods- Local Pickup. In such a case, you have added the highest priority, i.e, 1 for Pickup Locations:
Enabled/ Disabled |
Priority | Schedule Type | Delivery Days | Time slots | |
Custom Delivery Schedule 1 |
Enabled | 1 | Pickup Locations – Tyche Softwares,
Daulat Nagar |
Fridays
Saturdays |
– |
Custom Delivery
Schedule 2 |
Enabled | 3 | Shipping Methods:
All Over India -> Local Pickup |
Tuesdays
Wednesdays Thursdays |
10:00 to 12:00 |
Once the delivery schedules have been configured with the above settings, they will look like this:
When a customer fulfills the requirement of these two delivery schedules by selecting Local Pickup as the Shipping Method as shown here:
Additionally, they’ve selected the Tyche Softwares, Daulat Nagar Pickup Location.
In such a case, the delivery calendar will show Fridays and Saturdays because priority was given to the schedule with the Pickup Location:
If the customer chooses another Pickup Location, for instance, Tyche Softwares, Road no 3, Nashik, then priority will be given to delivery schedule 2 which is the Shipping Methods: All Over India -> Local Pickup. In this case, the delivery dates available will be on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays as shown below:
Additionally, the time slots available would be 10:00-12:00 after this selection:
Thus, using this feature, you can easily prioritize certain delivery schedules over others.